Get real about Afghanistan?
Building on our recent discussion of Afghanistan, a couple of items of interest today. Daring to stand up to the budding consensus that it may be time to get out of Afghanistan, Ruben Navarette today released an commentary on the topic. He notes that “Senior Pentagon officials are expected to ask for as many as 45,000 additional American troops this month. Currently, there are about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.” To him, this is not a bothersome development. He complains that the only “nation-building” the left supports is the type done by the Peace Corps, rather than the military. With no indication why this position is incorrect, he asserts that
“Liberals love to build things, especially with other people’s tax dollars. They just don’t like the idea of U.S. troops doing the building. Maintaining a military presence on foreign soil makes the left nervous because it feeds the perception that the United States has an itch for imperialism and can’t go long without scratching it.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s the 737 military bases around the world and millions of deployed soldiers that really “feeds the perception” that we have an “itch for imperialism.” I wonder why Navarette doesn’t criticize war-mongering conservatives for “loving to build things, especially with other people’s tax dollars”? After all, the Pentagon estimates that our overseas bases are worth at least $127 billion– does he think they were paid for through donations from grateful Iraqis and Afghanis?
Finally, he trots out the standard Neocon/Bush reasoning for why we are involved: we have to fight them over there, so we don’t fight them here.
But holding the line in Afghanistan doesn’t just make political sense for Obama. It’s also common sense. Forget nation-building. Let’s focus on the need to maintain an outpost in a dangerous neighborhood so we can ferret out our enemies and eliminate them before they can strike us again.
It’s time to grow up and confront an unpleasant reality, folks. The world changed on September 11, 2001, and it’s not a question of “if” another attack comes but “when.” Retreat isn’t an option. Nor is surrender. And nor is a kind of wistful isolationism where U.S. troops pack up their gear and come home, where bygones will be bygones and where al Qaeda won’t follow. We can fight this battle on the streets of Kabul or in Kansas City.
Pullout of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. 1988. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev. From Wikipedia (Commons)
Does Navarette really believe that truckloads of armed Afghanis will invade Kansas City? How absurd. I’m left wondering why retreat is not an option? Clearly, we are not wanted, either in Iraq or Afghanistan. Why must we agree to “maintain an outpost” in order to “ferret out our enemies”? Especially in the wake of another important story about Afghanistan- a NATO strike yesterday killed at least 80 people, including many villagers. Add these civilians to the tens of thousands killed overall, and the “1,013 Afghan civilian deaths for the six months from January 1st to June 30.” Think about that statistic… over a thousand civilian deaths in 6 months. I wonder why they don’t want us there? It seems that, rather than ferreting out our enemies, we have proven to be rather exceptional killers of civilians there while little has been done to actually accomplish any military objectives. Does anyone know what our goal in Afghanistan really is? It’s been variously described as hunting for Bin Laden, destroying Al-Qaeda, making it safe for democracy, not to mention the cynical reason: “energy security“. Read that as ensuring control over the area’s energy corridor by interests friendly to the United States.
Apparently, the NYT’s push for more civilian deaths in Afghanistan is working. In contravention of their own rules of engagement, US Special Operations forces have murdered an additional 27 civilians in an airstrike this week. Have we given up the pretense that we are there to win hearts and minds? Consider: